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Slovenia to become associate Member State in pre-stage to membership

13 January 2017

CERN Council has voted unanimously to admit the Republic of Slovenia to associate membership in the pre-stage to CERN membership. Slovenia’s membership will facilitate, strengthen and broaden the participation and activities of Slovenian scientists, said Slovenian minister Maja Makovec Brenčič, and give Slovenian industry full access to CERN procurement orders. “Slovenia is also aware of the CERN offerings in the areas of education and public outreach, and we are therefore looking forward to become eligible for participation in CERN’s fellows, associate and student programmes.”

Slovenian physicists have participated in the LHC’s ATLAS experiment for the past 20 years, focusing on silicon tracking, protection devices and computing at the Slovenian Tier-2 data centre. However, Slovenian physicists contributed to CERN long before Slovenia became an independent state in 1991, participating in an experiment at LEAR and the DELPHI experiment at LEP. In 1991, CERN and the Executive Council of the Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia signed a co-operation agreement, and in 2009 Slovenia applied to become a Member State.

Following internal approval procedures, Slovenia will join Cyprus and Serbia as an associate Member State in the pre-stage to membership. At the earliest two years thereafter, Council will decide on the admission of Slovenia to full membership. “It is a great pleasure to welcome Slovenia into our ever-growing CERN family as an associate Member State in the pre-stage to membership,” says CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti.

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